Criminal Justice

The Intermediate People's Court in Nanping city, Fujian province, sentenced Huang Jin'gao on November 10 to life imprisonment and deprivation of political rights for accepting bribes and corruption, according to a Xinhua report (in Chinese) dated the same day. A former Communist Party official, Huang once was hailed in China's state-run media as a whistleblower who exposed massive government corruption. According to the Xinhua report, the court found that Huang had used his positions as a deputy district head, director of the Fuzhou municipal finance committee, and Communist Party secretary in Lianjiang county to obtain 3,549,300 million yuan (US $228,000) in bribes.

Chinese authorities have placed a Communist Party cadre who briefly rose to fame in China by denouncing official corruption under a form of house arrest while authorities investigate his conduct, according to a November 11 report in the Washington Post. Local Communist Party secretary Huang Jingao became frustrated with the lack of higher-level support for his efforts to stem corruption in Lianjiang County, Fujian, and on August 8, 2004, he posted an open letter of complaint on the People's Daily website. Huang accused higher level officials of conspiring to protect corrupt local cadres. For a few days, Huang's contribution to the battle against corruption was widely praised in China.

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) issued Measures on the Registration of Judicial Forensic Centers and Measures on the Registration of Judicial Forensic Personnel on September 30 implementing a February 28 National People’s Congress (NPC) decision barring courts from establishing their own forensics centers to provide expert determinations of fact. The dependence of some courts on the revenue generated from fees raised by these centers has raised concerns regarding judicial fairness, such as the perception that parties may purchase favorable factual determinations from the courts that are responsible for handling their legal disputes.

Supreme People's Court (SPC) Vice President Wan Exiang announced September 25 that the SPC is taking further steps to reclaim the power of review over all death penalty decisions, according to the September 27 edition of the China Youth Daily. In a public lecture at the Beijing Institute of Technology, Vice President Wan said that the SPC will add three criminal tribunals to cope with the additional work from taking back the death penalty review power. He added that this latest move will be vital to maintaining judicial neutrality.

Local officials again beat blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng near his home in Shuanghou township, Shandong province, on October 24, according to a report the same day on Radio Free Asia. Since September 6, officials have held Chen under house arrest for publicizing abuses by local population planning officials.

Chen attempted to leave his home to greet two friends whom security officers guarding the house had prevented from visiting him. Eight or nine men, including two officials, then began beating and kicking Chen, according to the RFA account. Family members brought him back inside the house, but officials subsequently denied the family’s request to send him to the hospital. Local officials also beat Chen on October 4.

Xinjiang state security officials questioned and beat Tong Qimiao, a Protestant businessman, on September 28 and on October 1 threatened to revoke his business license, according to September 30 and October 3 reports of the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S.-based NGO that monitors the religious freedom of Chinese Protestants. State security officials beat Tong so seriously that he could not walk; his wife sent him to a hospital in Kashgar, where tests showed that a bone in his chest was broken. State security officials visited him in the hospital, showed him the September 30 press release of the China Aid Association, and demanded that he state in writing that officials had not beaten him, threatening to revoke his business license if he refused.

More than 10 traffic police officers stormed a Communist Party newspaper office in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, and beat and detained Wu Xianghu, a deputy editor at the Taizhou Evening News, after a scuffle between Wu and a senior police officer over the paper's recent report about unreasonable traffic license charges, according to an October 22 South China Morning Post (SCMP) report (subscription required). A newspaper employee confirmed to the SCMP that the beating required Wu to be hospitalized for "severe injuries."